Year End Letter 2020
2020 was a year like no other. What a lesson of humility and what a reminder that there is so much we can control! The ordeal we lived through triggered many of us to rethink our life priorities. This will have a lasting impact on people’s outlook and expectations – and therefore on the way we do business.
More broadly, 2020 was a direct challenge to what defines our societies and the fundamental values on which our democracies are built upon. The great debate between freedom and safety has raged all year and has, unfortunately, contributed to further dividing us rather than bringing us together.
There is little debate however, that we were not prepared to face such a crisis. A large consensus now exists that If we don’t learn from this, it would have all been for nothing. There must be a different ‘after’, and the time to start building it is now. 2021 then will be a year of new beginnings. The year we roll up our sleeves and get together to start building a better, fairer, more sustainable world.
So what have we learned and how does it apply to our industry?
We need more flexible and resilient ways of working. We have all experienced, at different degrees, the constraints and challenges of working remotely. Anything requiring us to be ‘in the office’ became an impediment. Before COVID, voice and manual processes were a source of deplorable inefficiencies. After COVID, they are simply a source of unacceptable operational risks and business continuity headaches. We need more digitalization, virtualization and decentralization.
We also need more data and better decision making. Never has it been so obvious that without data we are blind. Without data fear takes over, and with fear in our hearts, our heads cannot act with reason. More timely and reliable data, only possible through digitalization, would go a long way to improve our collective decision-making. Yet, this is not enough. We also need to better leverage AI to deal with especially complex and emotional situations.
Finally, we need to build a more sustainable economy. The future of financing must be sustainable. It is time to align investments with more than just profitability. It is time to build that better, fairer, more sustainable world.
While 2020 was a challenging year, it was also a transition. I believe we are at the beginning of a new era. The era of ubiquitous digitalization through platforms. The era of better decision making thanks to AI. The era of decentralization enabled by blockchain technology. This is precisely what Onbrane has been created for.
We are looking forward to working with you in 2021, to implement the lessons learned from 2020 and to build a better primary debt market together.
Happy New Year.
